


let me not be put to shame

by saintpyrite



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintpyrite/pseuds/saintpyrite
Summary: Patton should not love Remus and he cannot keep Remus. It doesn't stop him from doing so anyhow.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 26
Kudos: 123





	1. for whoever is ashamed

**Author's Note:**

> [REQUEST PROMPT]: Intruality, secret unrequited love that Patton is ashamed of but can't resist. Everyone except Remus knowing and pitying him? Background (healthy, happy) Roceit and Analogical maybe, just to really rub salt in Patton's wounds?

People fall in love with what they cannot keep, they fall in love with those they should not. It’s cruel and it’s painful and it’s selfish, there is no reward for yearning after that which is not yours, to begin with. 

Patton should not love Remus and he cannot keep Remus, there is no reward in trying and there is no solace from the ache. It doesn’t stop him from loving the man nonetheless.

* * *

Patton takes the first step forward instead of backwards, tentative and navigating unfamiliar territory. He’s hoping to find the middle ground, for his appeal for clemency to be heard. 

They meet on the outskirts. Remus watches him, wild eyes and unreadable and it makes Patton swallow. His knuckles go white around the peace offering and there is a moment where his stomach twists in knots, fear, a feeling he knows like an old friend as Remus approaches him. Remus reaches out. He takes the olive branch. 

The way he smiles, Remus smiles with too many teeth laid out like tombstones and it makes a shiver run down Patton’s spine and the way he laughs makes him feel hollow, makes his insides twist tighter and he waits for the inevitable. 

It doesn’t come, instead, fear gives way for shame and regret. He’s invited in and that invitation makes it bittersweet because if it had been the other way around, Patton would have been wary of Remus. Shame sits on the end of his tongue, even when he smiles back.

It should be an old story but it’s far too new to Patton; this is no wary spider in the garden or a snake in the grass, this is Remus. He’s intrusive like a weed, his presence is loud and deafening, impossible to ignore and intimidating. Patton finds his legs trembling but he just smiles wider, matching Remus for every step forward.

Patton takes one step, then another, and another, and another. 

He tells himself it’s for the good of everyone and that everything will work out just fine, as it often does. 

_(There are knots in his stomach and they coil tighter with each step; Patton is certain it’s fear.)_

* * *

Remus shows up unannounced and each time, Patton feels his stomach tighten in knots. It's an unwelcome feeling, it isn't like before because he doesn't fear Remus. 

He reassures himself, it'll fade with time he says. It's a mantra now but it gets caught in the back of his throat when Remus smiles at him. His teeth are no longer bared as if Patton is prey, it's as if they are friends. 

Patton likes to think of them as friends, it eases the tightness in his chest for a second. The ache is almost bearable when Remus smiles at him, there is an unrestrained wildness there and it takes everything in Patton to keep his feet rooted on the ground rather than be swept up in the madness. He wonders if the others feel this way when Remus enters the room, he’s a hurricane or a wildfire, Patton is certain. A natural disaster.

It’s everything Patton should do to prevent and yet, his moral compass says nothing when Remus takes his hands into his own. They’re cold, he says and finds himself turning them over once then twice. They’re littered in small scars, knicks and cuts. The nails have grime and dirt underneath, chipped and streaked with white lines. 

Remus watches him, lets him turn those hands over and over again as if they’d change and there is a tension in the air. He wonders if Remus feels it too. Patton finds himself comparing them to a corpse, he doesn’t recognise his voice and says the words until Remus laughs, heartily and amused. It’s surprising, reeling even but Patton laughs back because it should frighten him to think in this way.

It doesn’t. 

_(Patton decides there is no such thing as bad imagination; not when being likened to a corpse can make Remus laugh like that.)_

* * *

The two share little in common and yet, Patton finds himself by Remus’ side. It starts with the olive branch and with enough cultivating and nurturing, it begins to grow. It leaves a seed of curiosity in Patton’s chest, followed by a sickening twist in his stomach that resembles fear and shame, a little voice in the back of his head reminding him of a poor little cat who tried to satiate its curiosity only to meet its end. 

They keep meeting and it’s wild, it’s heavy and weighs on Patton in a way that he represses. Remus has a way of making him come back though, has a way of easing the ache in his chest and the knots in his stomach despite being the culprit. Patton says nothing, pushes it down, way down and smiles bright and tender when Remus meets his gaze. 

Their time together is spent learning; Patton learns how Remus paints frantic and wild, learns how he thinks by setting the box on fire, and he thinks Remus learns about him as well. Remus learns to be tender, he learns to be gentle and quiet and he learns ways to be heard without hurting. 

Most of all, he learns that Remus has intrusive thoughts of his own. His shame. His vulnerability. 

_“Why do you think God favoured Abel over Cain?”_

Patton learns the intricacies of Remus, he learns every fracture and every crack. For all he knows, they’re endless and he seeks to pour gold into them, weld them together and make them beautiful. He prays for Remus.

Somewhere between prayers, he falls in love with him. 

_(The knot in his stomach returns, tighter than ever.)_

* * *

He doesn’t tell a soul, would never, the shame is far too great and the weight of the sin is far too heavy. Patton finds himself reciting prayers under his breath, finds himself wondering if Jesus loved Judas the way he loves Remus, finds it pathetic to compare such tales to his own. He thinks the others know. His eyes are on him. The knots in his stomach twist. There’s blood on his tongue as he bites down. He swallows shame.

* * *

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Patton says to Logan, smiling as if he’s joking. The air is stifling though, it makes the steam from the kettle feel like a winter breeze and the quiet is no longer comforting. Logan is the first to ask him. 

It should come as no surprise, Logan is not a fool blinded by ignorance but Patton had always preferred ignorance. They say ignorance is bliss, he’d counter but he knows Logan would have sharp words and a sharper tongue to say otherwise. He wants to be left alone. 

There is no such mercy, Logan sits at the table and watches him over the rim of his glasses. Patton keeps his eyes on the steam billowing out of the kettle. 

This love is nothing like anything he’d ever felt. It’s shameful and it’s heavy. It’s water in his lungs and a wooden cross on his back. Nails drove into his wrists, his ankles. It is shame. 

Patton pours himself a cup then pours Logan one. He brings them on little china saucers, reserved for special occasions. There is a crack in one of the little plates where Remus had dropped it. The damaged saucer stays in front of him, he gives the one with no damage to Logan.

“Satisfaction brought it back,” Logan counters, a quiet thanks for the tea. Patton pretends not to hear him.

* * *

Logan must have told Virgil, there are no secrets between those two. It’s another conversation for them, another concern for the greater good if Patton isn’t doing his work or if Patton is distracted. He knows they just worry.

Virgil knocks on his door that night, carrying himself with purpose and steps into Patton’s space as if he belonged there. Patton smiles, then Virgil decides to speak and his innards coil and twist so fast that he can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. It’s all he has to say, it seems.

Patton feels as if he’s being pitied and pity sounds awful similar to shame on his tongue. He hopes Virgil can forgive him, feels as if that's what was happening when they embraced and Virgil lets him sob into the dark fabric of his hoodie. Maybe he’d known long before now, maybe he’d always known. 

He has felt enough shame, Patton likes to think, he doesn’t want to feel it any longer. He doesn’t want to love Remus, he decides.

“Repression doesn’t do us any good,” Virgil says, hand soothing down unruly curls in Patton’s hair. Patton just sobs harder.

* * *

He takes to old habits, pushing down thoughts and feelings and pretending everything is fine. He avoids Remus when he can. Patton thinks it might just work. 

It doesn't, Janus makes that clear. He corners him, lures him with bait to his room and he finds himself the one on the witness stand once again. 

"You can't lie to me," Janus says. It floods Patton with his familiar old friend, how shame has become such comfort now, he'll never know. 

"I'm falling in love with Remus," Patton admits. 

"Does he know?" Janus asks. 

Falling in love should never be accompanied by shame. It should never be built on foundations of sand, it would only collapse. Precarious at the edge of the cliff, if Patton let go, he'd fall and hit the rocks below. 

There are no good words for what Patton wants, he cannot find himself to find out if there ever could be one to describe them. 

Janus tells him things get better. He thinks Janus is lying.

* * *

He's surprised to see Roman confront him on the matter. Two sides of the same coin, Roman's lesser half as they'd always say. 

Roman is out in the hall as he leaves Remus' room, covered in paint smudges and fingerprints. His smile falls, the red in his cheeks drains pale when he sees Roman standing there. 

He expects an argument, screaming and harsh words and an endless stream of validation for why Patton feels such shame and love for one man he cannot keep. He hopes Roman takes his side. 

There is nothing but silence and it almost breaks Patton until Roman wavers first. 

A quiet whisper, "I know how it felt, the shame." 

Patton feels a bitterness in him that he locks away, he can't meet Roman's eyes. It's a cue, an invitation to keep going or that's how Roman takes it. 

"It isn't a love to be ashamed of, Patton," Roman says, reaching out. Patton pulls away. 

He wants to believe that but he can't. If he does, for even a second, he might fool himself into believing there was something that could be done about this. 

He walks away, leaving Roman in the halls.

* * *

Patton has to watch the others.

He has to watch the way Logan presses gentle kisses to Virgil’s hands, how their love is thunderous and powerful in a way that Patton envies. He watches how Virgil gazes at Logan as if he held the secrets of the universe in his eyes, how he traced freckles along Logan’s arms like constellations. 

He has to watch Janus wrap his arms around Roman’s waist and pull him in, how often he finds them slow dance in the dark of the night together and move as if they were one being. He is witness to how Roman serenades Janus, weaves lyrics and waxes poetry for his lover as if there were no other people in the world but the two of them.

Everyone else can stand toe to toe with their lover, everyone else gets to look the one they love in the eye. It is salt in an age-old wound and Patton is sick of it. Patton feels the press of Remus leaning on him, back against his own as they sit there watching the world pass by. It’s a comforting weight but it doesn’t come without pain. 

“It’s disgusting to see them like that, isn’t it?” Remus says, laughing afterwards.

“ _Disgusting_ ,” Patton echoes back.

* * *

Patton grows weary, he carries shame on his back and it’s beginning to wear him down. He doesn’t tell Remus. He doesn’t talk to the others about it. He’s tired of shame, he’s tired of pity and he’s tired of love. 

But it’s easier to love Remus; easier to love him than hate him and even though Patton knows it’s a mistake, he does it anyway. He cannot have him, he cannot keep him but he loves him all the same and it’s the biggest mistake he’s ever made. A mistake with a sharp smile and a wicked laugh, devastating like a spear between his ribs and every time he sees the others, it twists in deeper until Patton can’t breathe.

Remus is a wildfire in his lungs, smoke clogging up the air and the world doesn’t burn forever but Patton feels as if he has burned enough. He tries to find solace in their moments together, the quiet between them where he can run his fingers over the scars of Remus’ hand or hold him during the nights neither of them can sleep.

It’s not enough, stolen moments with a tenderness that leaves Patton yearning and longing for more. He feels like a starving dog, being fed nothing but scraps when he needs more to sustain him, wants more. 

There were easier ways out, Patton knows, he could tell Remus or he could stop letting him in but Patton has weaved shame and love in such a way that to undone one would be to undo the other, it would be to build a house on foundations of sand rather than stone and Patton knows this. He knows this the same way he knows there is no rationale behind this, no logic and nothing good and moral about this but Remus relieves the sick hunger inside him and he continues to feed on the scraps he receives, Patton keeps on letting him in. 

It took him so long to realise the feeling, even longer to admit it. It’d be a long time before he could bring himself to do something about it. 

“I’m glad you chose me,” Remus tells him once, likens him to God and himself to Cain, and it makes Patton sick to his stomach. “I’m glad you can find it in you to love someone like me, the way you love them.”

_It’s not enough._


	2. sacrament of confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus will never understand shame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone requested a happy ending for these boys and I couldn't resist.

In shame, one may think of themself as a bad person. An act of shame is taken as indisputable proof of one’s own character rather than a moment of weakness or negligence. Remus had never known shame and even less so where desire held a seat at the table, where love was concerned. 

Even so, he could feel the intrusive roots of shame plant themselves in Patton. He could feel vines pull down as they wrapped around the bones of morality, the seed gives way to weeds of indignity and atop Patton’s head, guilty thorns present themselves as if they were a crown. 

* * *

_(“I confess to you, almighty God and to you, Father, that I have sinned.”)_

Light filtered through colourful stained glass, statues and stations of the cross bathing in the ocean of colours. Grand arches in marble white, pews in the finest mahogany, gold crosses and red silk draped over the altar. It’s unfamiliar territory, as marvellous as the creation is and it did little to help Remus understand Patton as he sat in the confessional.

Remus has been watching him these past few weeks, a pit in his stomach as he pulled his knees up to his chest. He had tried confessing himself to the open air but there was little shame he felt, no heaviness pressing against his ribs and making them creak and groan with the weight of guilt and shame. There was nothing there, his thoughts were his own and he embraced them. 

Patton wasn’t the same way. As the compass of morality, it comes as no surprise to know that Patton is a religious man. His beliefs weave into his ideologies like golden threads, his ideals shaping him and it had taken time to pluck those threads to make way for change.

Change was inevitable though, Remus knew that and had learnt to make peace with it. Fingers tracing down his left side, an old mangled scar but this change was a tremor, the quakes rattled through Remus’ mind as he felt Patton begin to pull away, shame washing up against the shores. 

Remus remembered when Patton had taken the first step then another, then another, then another. He had laughed with teeth bared, predator hunting down prey and instead of running, Patton had stood his ground and smiled back. He had followed behind and as time went by, he walked with Remus in stride.

Remus could learn a thing or two from Patton.

* * *

_(“Since then, I have committed mortal sins.”)_

Remus could _feel_ intrusive thoughts, he could tear them open and strip them down to their bare essentials. It would have done Patton well to remember this if he planning to keep secrets.

If this had been any other day, Remus would have knocked on the door as Patton preferred but the pull of shame and guilt was strong, an orbit around the heart that was drawing Remus in so he showed up unannounced, rising up into the room.

Seeing Patton there, wide-eyed behind round glasses drew out laughter from Remus akin to thunder. It was rare he sought to catch Patton off guard and it was a great pleasure to know he could do so even now, just to tease the other. Circling around the bed, he watched as Patton swung his legs over the edge of the bed and peered up at him, a smile gracing his features and with bated breath, Remus felt a spark.

Pushing it down, Remus smiled back at him despite how he _knew_ Patton was weighing himself down, that he was battling an inner conflict and Remus can pull at the threads of Patton’s mind and see the guilt. He’d work to untangle those threads and set Patton free, be on the other side of the screen and serve him as if this room was a confessional. It would just take time. 

Remus had time for Patton, he would always find the time.

* * *

_(“These are my venial sins.”)_

They’re nothing alike in nature, Remus knows this. 

He is a wildfire, a hurricane, a natural disaster that tears through the room with his presence and demands to be seen. He is destruction and decimation, relentless on his warpath. 

Patton, however, is gentle showers and sunlight when he enters a room, heart on his sleeve and sunspots disguised as freckles. He is nurturing and caring, a helping hand to help the world grow. 

Yet, Patton found himself by Remus’ side and so, Remus was often beside Patton. It was hard to believe the seed of an apology Patton had planted in his chest would bloom and blossom, give life to the beauty inside him when everything he had known he could love withered under his touch. Patton made him better, Patton reminded Remus that he was capable of love, it was Patton who reminded him that he could be someone’s first.

It’s why it pained Remus to see such a guilty look on Patton’s face, wearing shackles on his wrists and chains around his ankles as he walked off the edge of the pier into the deep ocean that was shame. The depths of it pulling Patton in further, dragging him down and forcing its way into his lungs until the man breathed it as if shame and guilt had become air. 

It was worse because he only felt that shame when Patton met his eyes; he could bring out the most beautiful blood-red shades in the man’s cheeks and make him laugh melodic and bright with a symphony that would put angels to shame and yet, Patton would meet his eyes.

The shame there, Remus could feel the siren song try to drown him too.

* * *

_(“For these and all the sins that I have committed during my life, I am deeply sorry.”)_

It’s late in the night, whispers in the walls keeping them awake that it took little to lure away the man who held his heart. 

Intricate architecture and walls are woven together with a snap of his fingers, Patton turning to watch it come together as they were pulled into a baroque hall of his own design. As Patton turns to meet his eye, words lost and shame lost to wonder, Remus holds his hand out for him to take.

“Dance with me,” Remus tells him, “I know you want to.” 

Grin wicked enough to tempt Jesus in the desert, Remus takes what he wants where anyone else may have hesitated and pulled Patton into his arms. Once upon a time, his teeth bared would have been a predator’s grin and he’d have caught Patton by the throat but now, his grin was teasing and fond at the soft sanguine of the man’s skin as the two swayed in the dim light of the opera hall.

The guilt and shame ebbs, it gives way to the elated feelings of freedom and joy. It pulled at Remus’ heartstrings, let him bask in the sunlight that was Patton and it was in that moment, he realised he’d been waiting for the other to take the first step this whole time as they’d grown closer, entangling their time so intricately together that he had found comfort in needle pricks and sewing himself into the tapestry of another person’s life. 

He had waited for so long to love and be loved but Remus takes what he wants, he doesn’t wait for it and he doesn’t think of the consequences. Greedy, he watches Patton with hunger and he decides right there as he spins him that he _needs_ Patton for himself. 

He waited long enough.

* * *

_(“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You. I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell.”)_

His body was ablaze, the warmth of holding the sun in his arms as they swayed together was enough to turn his bones to charcoal and his body to ash. He’d hope if he became ash one day, Patton would do the honour of wearing them on his skin and forgiving him for the sin of waiting so long to say anything, to do anything when this moment was all he needed and he’d need it for eternity because to let it go would destroy him, it would light a wildfire in him that would burn away everything that dared to separate Patton from him.

Patton must have known, looking up at him but there were no words. Wide eyes full of awe and wonder, gentle and kind with an underlying strength many would dismiss and Remus knew that strength well, adored such a show of power because, in the face of a cruel world, one Remus flaunted with every fibre of his being, Patton saw the good there.

“What are you thinking?” Patton asked, letting Remus spin him outwards once more and back in again, his back pressed against Remus’ chest now as he was held in a tight embrace. 

There were many loud thoughts but at that moment, all but one fell into silence.

* * *

_(“But most of all because they offend You, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love.”)_

There was no music playing, Remus hadn’t felt they needed it and he had been right because he could hear his own heartbeat thundering through his body and he could feel the fleeting pulse of Patton’s own. It was a symphony of their own, one Remus could dance to forever if Patton would let him.

Leaning forward, head resting against the sturdy shoulder there and mouth pressing into the warm, sun-kissed skin exposed. Remus smiled as Patton’s breath hitched, as the red enveloped Patton from his neck up to the tips of his ears until he resembled a pomegranate. 

Remus had always wanted to know how the fruit of Eden tasted but to do so, he would have to impart the knowledge he had kept to himself in exchange and hope it was enough to win over the man who was the saint to his sins. 

“I’m in love with you, Patton.”

A silence fell over the room, a quiet where both men held their breath. Remus let Patton go, let the man turn in his arms to find eyes searching for the cruelty he could be known for. There was nothing there, Remus knew he would find honesty and sincerity that only Patton could draw out him as if drawing water from a rock. 

“You love me,” Patton echoed back.

* * *

_(“I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”)_

There was no knowledge here, any disquiet was exiled in the four walls that surrounded them, there was no wishful thinking or little white lies here. These four walls held lust and desire, crumbled under shame and guilt and were rebuilt with love and patience. 

Remus takes Patton’s hands into his own, a warmth only Patton can give him thawing the cold of his hands. He lets Patton recites prayers under his breath, he lets Patton crumble under the weight of his shame and he rebuilds him because there is no shame in how they love. 

* * *

_("For His mercy endures forever.")_

Light filters through stained glass windows, shadows cast by statues of prophets and saints standing tall under grand arches of marble white. The low sun catches the gold of the crosses and reflects off of the red silk draped over the altar. 

Remus wouldn’t know though, pressing Patton into the walls of the confessional as the two stumble into the mockery of God’s house. He has learned that there are acts to a confession as if they were acts in a play, a role to perform. There are lines to recite, questions to ask and answers to be found. He wonders, if just for a moment, if Judas ever confessed his love for Jesus in the quiet of a holy temple and Remus begins to think that he had done so, it may have saved his soul. 

Remus is not Judas though, he will not play out the role of such a man and he will not let Patton carry a cross made with shame and guilt on his back, Remus wouldn’t carry or bear such a cross and he will not have Patton carry himself off in pursuit of martyrdom. 

“I love you,” Remus whispers against Patton’s skin, “You love me; there is no shame here.”

He kisses Patton; it’s holy and ungodly all at once, it’s a blessing and a curse, it’s a sin and a virtue. He lets Patton bite down on his lip, they taste blood. Remus swallows down Patton’s shame.

_(A crucifix is nothing but dry wood and what makes for better kindling than a man’s shame?)_


End file.
